


What We Lost

by CaptainDeryn



Series: Nine to Five [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Character Death, F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Male-Female Friendship, Spies & Secret Agents, no longer canon, stuff gets sad, why can't the agents just be happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 13:54:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13952991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainDeryn/pseuds/CaptainDeryn
Summary: A Cipher should know better than to get attached. But even the best Ciphers make mistakes.





	What We Lost

From: Unknown Source

To: Cipher Nine

Subject: –

Nine.

You know as well as I do what’s going on if you’re reading this message. I wouldn’t go through all this trouble just to tell you I miss you. Which maybe I do.

But don’t miss me. If you do…well we’ve both karked up pretty badly following the advice I gave you when you first walked into Intelligence, fresh eyed and ready to serve the Empire then.  Remember, no getting close?

Now we’re both want to commit treason and I like you much more than I should. I get the sense that goes both ways.

They know, Nine. They always know. You’re smart enough, cunning enough to get what you want but don’t try. Don’t. Even you can’t beat them at their own game. Don’t.do.it. By any respect or love you have for me. I’ve made the mistakes here, do your best not to follow them.

Keep your chin up Nine, this isn’t the end. I’ll always see you on the other side of tomorrow, remember?

-V

From: Unknown Source

To: Cipher Nine

Subject: –

I never thanked you for the roses. They’ve brightened up these last few days. I’m sorry I can’t thank you in person. I know this isn’t much…but it’s the only thing a Cipher can have that has any worth. You of all people know what it’s like to hold onto a small part of yourself like a lifeline. I’ve guarded it for eight years, don’t let Intelligence take it now.Just give it back when you see me next.

-V

<encrypted file attached>

_((Decode file: Y/N))_

_Yes._

_((File decoded.))_

“Five?” She doesn’t even need to ask, Noa’s silence is enough. The delicate way she slides her jacket off and hanging it up like she’d rather melt into the wall than go noticed by Era. She doesn’t even need Noa to _know_ , the datapad under her hand had buzzed a few moments ago and she had read the words without even processing them. But even so, some part of her needs that confirmation. 

“Found and eliminated on contact.” Noa forces the words out through clenched teeth, still by the door. Whatever reaction Noa is expecting, it couldn’t have been the motionless, stiff one that Era gives. She can’t see her biting her lip hard enough to hurt, can’t see her nails digging into her palms. “They tracked him down this morning. Hours to find him…he didn’t fight. Reports are saying he was killed by his own error.” She pauses and at her side her droid whines mournfully. “Era please say something.”

( **** _“Chin up, Nine. We’re almost out of here.” Five gently put two gloved fingers under Nine’s chin, tilting her downcast eyes up to meet his. She frowned, blinking rain out of her eyes._

_That was their promise. This last mission and then Five was going to get out of Intelligence before he snapped, then he was going to come do the same for Era and Noa. He wanted to be the test…in case of failure. Five didn’t fail._

_“One last mission.” Nine grasped his hand in hers, giving him a firm nod. “One last hurrah. Make those eight years count.”_

__His sharp nod in return was his farewell, impermanent in the way the classic Cipher farewell implied. This wasn’t a farewell. It was a temporary absence._ )_

Head bowed, she leans on the counter, fingernails scratching over the screen of the datapad that’s still displaying his final words–Era realizes that with a jolt. It was probably one of the last things Five had written. His last cohesive message sent to anyone. That thought makes her breath hitch. _You know as well as I do what’s going on if you’re reading this message._

_“_ He knew.” Despite her stomach that is twisting itself into a knot and her throat that is slowly contracting her voice is flat. “He knew he wasn’t getting out and he knew they were going to kill him.” She laughs bitterly and it comes out in a choked noise nowhere near humor. “Five doesn’t… _didn’t_ make mistakes.”

_I’ve made the mistakes here._ But he did make mistakes. He became like an older brother to her, an attachment he swore he’s never make. He decided he was going to leave before he snapped when he had sworn he’d leave Intelligence the way any Cipher did–being killed in a fight they could no longer face. Five had been running on borrowed time and he’d run out before he could stop the timer.

Her next breath catches in her throat and without thinking she shoves the datapad viciously away from her, hears it smack onto the floor with a crack.

“Era,” She hears Noa move closer, feels her when she stops next to her. “Come here.” 

When she turns into the circle of Noa’s arms her shoulders her shaking, her eyes squeezed shut against the tears leaking out. It’s a long time before her cries soften into hiccuping breaths, the tears on her cheeks drying to leave chapped and red skin in their wake.

–

_They know, Nine. They always know. You’re smart enough, cunning enough to get what you want but don’t try. Don’t. Even you can’t beat them at their own game._

Intelligence is subdued the next day, the other Ciphers quiet and stricken. No one raises questions when Era strides in, white uniform replaced with one of deep black. No one needs to. They all recognize the similarities to Five’s own preferred uniform.

She holds her chin high, jaw set and eyes blazing through the day. Not once does Intelligence get the satisfaction of one problem agent falling to grief.

It isn’t until agents start to notice that the collar of her jacket is unbuttoned that they see the painted green tendrils snaking from her shoulder around her neck, the shadowy pricks of what looked like thorns patterned as well. It’s when the remaining Ciphers gather under the pretense of training that she lets her jacket slip from her shoulder to show five painted roses, wilting and browned snaking from her bicep up to the tendril around her neck. Dying roses and their vines choking her.

It’s almost a mirror image to the roses she painted on Five the day before he departed for his mission.

( _”You better be painting something majestic.” Five warned, trying to crane his neck to see what Era was doing. She laughed, blocking him with her forearm while the other swirled the paintbrush over the skin of his shoulder._

_“It’ll be the most majestic thing to have ever graced your being.” She promised, splaying he hand across his eyes when he tried to look again. “Stop. It’s a surprise.”  
_

_It was a quiet day for the cipher agents, with only a few remaining after the meetings had adjourned for the day. Era was still waiting for Noa, Five was only here because he had finally relented to her constant pleas to let her paint on him._

_So he had found himself sitting in his chair, Intelligence jacket thrown to the side and shirtsleeve shoved up with Era sitting cross legged on his desk, working with an intense concentration._

_“And…done!” Era pulled her paintbrush away with a flourish, putting it down on the piece of flimsi she had dumped paints on and schooched back on the desk enough for Five to see what she had done.  
_

_“Roses?” Five gave her an indignant look, narrowing his eyes at her. “That is not  majestic Cipher Nine!”  
_

_She smirked. “On the contrary, roses are very elegant. Are you implying you, agent of Imperial birth, citizen of Dromund Kaas are some hooligan unworthy of elegance?”_

_Her laughter deepened when Five dumped her off his desk, shaking his head and grumbling. Even still, she caught him showing it off to some of the other agents minutes later, lauding her work._

_Beneath the Kaasian rain before his departure the exposed paint on his neck had started to smear, running red under the relentless deluge_.)

It becomes a sign among the Ciphers. Every day a few more appear with similar depictions, none quite as large or bold. Most have smaller roses, dead with petals falling or thorny vines strangling drawn on their wrists, easily concealed by the cuff of their jacket. Era wears the black until the paint completely fades from her shoulder. Even then, grey replaces white.

Intelligence tries to say that Five was killed by his own error on mission. Only the Fixers know for certain that this is not the truth. They’re the ones that had to track him down, had to determine that he was a threat.

The Ciphers don’t believe it. Ciphers didn’t survive for eight years if they made mistakes. Cipher agents weren’t careless, didn’t forget anything unless they wanted to be killed. Ciphers were killed for being threats, for thwarting orders.

Intelligence hadn’t been done with Five yet. His orders weren’t yet complete.

But he had made himself a threat, long before his disposal, before even Era herself had unknowingly threatened her superiors enough to force a muzzle onto her. Orders changed and he was no longer needed.

Era learns the full story through sliced records and what Noa can smuggle home to her. Somewhere along the line Five’s thoughts of deserting–named treason now–were heard by the wrong people. He was sent on a complicated mission, difficult even for an agent of his caliber and cornered by several unidentified agents. He hadn’t drawn his weapon, hadn’t made any move to run or strike. A sniper struck him down, killed him instantly.

While unconfirmed, the Ciphers whisper that his mission was all organized down to every last detail, that Five’s death was staged by Intelligence so they could write if off as agent error. The thought of that leaves a bitter taste in Era’s mouth.

She thought it would help, knowing what had really happened. She thought it would put her mind at ease so that she could stop seeing thousands of ways he could have died behind closed eyelids. It doesn’t. Instead she hears him, imagines those last moments clearer every time until she can hardly sleep at night. 

Noa is no better. She knew the numbers better then Era, had seen what happens to defecting agents firsthand whereas she had only heard stories. Her nightmares aren’t about Five. It’s everything that happened and worse happening to Era. All discussion of their leaving is at a standstill, neither can breath a word of it even in the safety of their own home. Instead they hold each other tight at night, brush hands whenever they pass in Headquarters.

There’s nothing else they can do. Not with these wounds so fresh.

–

_.D_ _on’t miss me._

It’s several days before Era can bring herself to walk into the Agent’s Lounge. It’s quiet this late, with only a few agents remaining to talk in hushed whispers and share whiskey before they go out into the field. No one says anything as Era weaves between tables to the back wall, where a staircase lies untouched.

All conversation hushes when she takes the first stair, then the next until she fully disappears from view.

The tables around it are deserted and its silent this far back. The Cipher’s Lounge is deserted and it seems oddly fitting as she pads across the floor to the back wall.

Her fingers slide off the glimmering black stone, white and purple pieces of mica shimmering through it’s surface. It’s cold to the touch and she lets her fingers glance off the stone as she walks, her boots clicking softly against the floor until she pauses again to look up.

_Remember. Live Fully. Love Completely. Serve Completely. A Cipher Never Dies._

It’s engraved in the top of the stone, deeper shadows and starker highlights against the flat expanse of the wall. Era takes a breath and squeezes her eyes closed, pushing back the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes again.

She keeps walking, past several shining white crystals embedded into the stone. Her fingers catch over the facets of the eight pointed stars they’re carved in to, each precious stone a little warmer than the black encasing it. So many stars, each a memory. Each an honor. Killed in action or missing, it doesn’t matter. Intelligence honors it’s fallen.

It’s at the end of the wall that she stops again, her palm resting over the last star, at the top of a new column. She stands for several seconds with her head bowed, shoulders shaking silently as the crystal cools her hand until she presses down gently.

A moment passes as the hologram flickers to life but then he’s there, a grainy blue recreation of Five. Unnamed, as all the Ciphers are on the wall. It doesn’t matter that his death was orchestrated for suspected treason. He served dutifully for nearly a decade, unmatched in skill in the field by anyone but maybe her.

Era lets herself sink to the floor, hologram of Five slowly fading without the pressure of her palm pressing on the crystal star.

Across the bottom of the wall she reads the last engraved word’s but all she can hear is Five’s voice. _Until we meet again…on the other side of tomorrow._

A Cipher never says goodbye.

–

She brings Noa with her next time, moving just as solemnly through the Lounge. This time there are a few more people, even a few Ciphers up stairs. Conversation stills, a respectful distance given to Nine and her companion.

Noa trails her hand along the wall just as Era had, brows creased as she takes in the ridges her fingers brush over. She lets her hands ghost over the engraved words, listens to Era as she murmurs them softly.

They stand at Five’s star, Noa’s hand resting over the eight faceted crystal with Era’s resting over hers. They’re quiet, shoulder to shoulder.

“Five kept his name. All these years.” She sighs, letting her head drop to Noa’s shoulder. “He wants me to remember it for him. Give it back when we next see each other.”

Noa’s freehand interlaces with Era’s other hand, squeezing it gently. “On the other side of tomorrow?” She repeats the Cipher non-farewell like they aren’t her words to say.

Era gives a slight nod. “On the other side of tomorrow.” she agreed. “A very long tomorrow.”

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't canon to my writing-verse anymore. Cipher Five is no longer dead and is quite the opposite. Find me (and Nine/Five) on tumblr at captainderyn!


End file.
